Apple Knows Better Than To Mess with Taylor Swift

Tay tay takes on the tech giant.

She can take down ex-flames with a few undercutting lyrics, so why not global tech companies?

On Saturday, Taylor Swift took aim at Apple's new streaming service, Apple Music, which launches on June 30. In a lengthy Tumblr post titled "Dear Apple, Love Taylor," she called out Apple for its refusal to pay artists their royalties during Apple Music's three-month free trial membership (which has been guaranteed to all potential users of the new streaming service), and said that as a result, she would be removing 1989 from the platform.

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"I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company," she wrote, before noting that while she is certainly successful enough to support herself with or without the royalties, many musicians don't have that luxury. "This is about the new artist or band that has just released their first single and will not be paid for its success. This is about the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut and thought that the royalties from that would get them out of debt. This is about the producer who works tirelessly to innovate and create, just like the innovators and creators at Apple are pioneering in their field...but will not get paid for a quarter of a year's worth of plays on his or her songs."

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Swift did insist that she has "love, reverence, and admiration for everything else Apple has done—praise that most of her song subjects don't get to experience. "I hope that soon I can join them in the progression towards a streaming model that seems fair to those who create this music. I think this could be the platform that gets it right."

And she was right—less than 24 hours after the post went live, Apple's Eddie Cue announced via Twitter that the company would heed Swift's request.

#AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming, even during customer’s free trial period